Medical school needs injection

Higher education in Louisiana has adapted to year-after-year of budget cuts, holding its own with less but warning of a day of reckoning.

Under the state constitution, when revenue falls short of budget, cuts can fall on only two areas: higher education and health care. The budget in other areas are protected.

Now, the day of reckoning may have arrived in a perfect storm that combines both higher education and health care.

The Louisiana House-passed budget is $42 million short in funding the LSU Medical School in Shreveport. The medical school, School of Allied Health and graduate degree programs focusing on research could face closure in January if administrators can't make up a projected shortfall.

LSU Health Shreveport Chancellor Dr. Robert Barish and Dr. Hugh Mighty told the Senate Finance Committee on Monday that the medical school has about seven months' funding in budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

The funding problem resulted largely from a change in the Medicaid reimbursement rate required by the federal government and the state doesn't have the money to secure more federal funds. A one-time cash infusion prevented a similar budget crisis this year.

E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe relies on the residency program to provide staff doctors, so, in the short-term, operations here won't be affected.

But without a medical school, there soon would be no resident doctors. And that would have a tremendous impact.

This news is the latest in a string of information that remains hard for the average citizen to decipher. LSU is negotiating with Biomedical Research Foundation in Shreveport to take over management of public hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe. The future under such a partnership has many in the region concerned despite assurances from the foundation that services would be unaffected.

The foundation plans to contract with medical school faculty, who are physicians, to treat patients at the hospitals. But that's on the assumption the school stays intact.

All of northern Louisiana, therefore, has a stake in what's happening with the budget in regards to higher education, and the LSU Medical School in Shreveport in particular. The health needs of many in northeastern Louisiana, especially those most needy, are potentially in jeopardy. Residents here should watch this closely.

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Medical school needs injection

Higher education in Louisiana has adapted to year-after-year of budget cuts, holding its own with less but warning of a day of reckoning.